


Only Then I Am Human

by onesickmind



Category: Welcome to Desert Bluffs - Fandom, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Autosarcophagy, BDSM, Best part about warnings is when people have to look some of them up, Cannibalism, Dubious Consent, Eating Disorders, God Sex, Hasn't ANYONE else written sex with the Smiling God?, M/M, Mind Control, Mpreg, Self-Mutilation, Strexcorp, dubcon, no masturbation AT ALL, oral anal all that good stuff, pika - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 01:53:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2714609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onesickmind/pseuds/onesickmind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Horror! Romance! Angst! Humor! Drama! Twists! More Horror! A ton of gratuitous sex! Kevin is in a relationship with The Smiling God, and he must constantly struggle with his loyalty, emotions, and grip on his own mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Agnosis

**Author's Note:**

> I'm supposed to be working on that Cecilos everyone loves so much. Let's post a story about a pairing nobody cares about instead!!
> 
> This is going to be a very long work, but I plan on making it worthwhile to read while it's in progress. If you see a flowery description you love, copy and save it, because I'm going to come back to this sometime and revise the poetic bits so they don't sound so cliche. 
> 
> Some chapters may have triggers for self-mutilation and eating disorders; I will warn at the beginning of each of these.

 

“So, Desert Bluffs, those of you who are smiling like idiots and those of you who have not given in to this ridiculous god. I want you all to find a mirror right now, a nice, reflective one. You look into that mirror, you look at that smile or that grimace, and you ask yourself, why am I staring at a mirror? Why am I not acting? Why am I not throwing this corporate, theocratic tyrant OUT?”

Kevin kicked back in his chair and spread his hands innocently. “This has been the Hypothetical Situation of the Day. Any enacting of this Hypothetical Situation in the real world is discouraged... by Strex. And probably actually a very good idea.”

He shuffled his papers. “In traffic--”

The door slammed open. Kevin switched to commercial. “Hey! I'm on air!”

“Oh, yes, we heard,” Lauren said. She stepped right up to him, boldly standing in biting range, as five armed assistant managers filed around her. “In fact, we've been listening to your broadcasts the past week with GREAT interest. Some people in VERY high places would like to talk to you.”

“Going to train me again?” Kevin sneered. “I'd show you my scars from last time, but they're in places inappropriate to expose to a lady.”

“Yes, I know that you have been quite-- uncooperative in training,” she sniffed. “Some brains are just too soft to mold, I suppose.” She glanced down her nose at him. “I see you've gained back some of your weight.”

“It's funny. All I have to do is hold out, and eventually the restraints are removed and my clothes are returned and I'm right back in my studio. You know Desert Bluffs won't hold together without its Voice.”

“Haha, such a loud bark from such a little dog. I can see you tensing already. Thinking of the taser whip, perhaps? The buzz knives? Oh, I know, it's the way they string you from the ceiling. Oh yes, that made your eye twitch.”

Kevin glared flatly at her, then, in an unhurried, casual motion, flicked the mic back on. “Desert Bluffs, remember our origins,” he said. “Remember everything we were before The Smiling-- AHHH!”

A taser whip wrapped his neck, and he went down.

Lauren stepped daintily over his convulsing body and pulled up the mic. “Please stand by as your Voice is recalibrated,” she said cheerfully. “All media quality is guaranteed by Strex!”

“Fuck your quality,” Kevin forced through clenched teeth.

“Bring him,” Lauren said to her armed entourage, heels clicking neatly as she stepped over him and out the door.

He regained enough neuromuscular control to fight, but the men quickly overwhelmed him. He was manhandled to a nearby building. They brought him to a small room containing nothing but a pit. It looked about eight feet wide, twenty feet deep, and had a rig of ropes and pulleys next to it.

At Lauren's signal, he was pushed to his knees and released. Lauren and the five men trained guns on him.

“I am going to tell you this once. Step into the sling, and allow us to lower you into the pit.”

“You'll have to kill me and then tie down the twitching pieces.”

Kevin was hit in the stomach, hard. The force knocked him down. He clutched it; his fingers instantly became wet. Oh. He had not been hit. He had been shot.

Another thud in his shoulder, flashing pain, and he had been shot again. Kevin cried out. Already on the ground, he now collapsed completely, huddled in pain, cheek flat against the floor. He heard a gun cock. He might have tried to do something about it, tried to fight or run, but all his body could do right now was curl into a ball.

Eyes squeezed shut and mouth grimacing, he could not even see Lauren aim at him. He could not even beg. He felt it, though, when another bullet shattered his ankle. Already curled and crying, he could do little more than whimper at the fresh pain.

“Anything more to say?”

Kevin would have if he could, but the only course of action his body was going to support right now was curling into the floor and sobbing. His throat was totally occupied with noises related to the pain. She paced around him, making humiliating remarks, but he could barely hear them over the whine in his ears, let alone pull the haze off his mind enough to form a retort.

Hands on him now, lifting him. Very strong. A biomachine. He was placed on the sling, smelling of canvas. Cracking his eyes, the weave looked huge and coarse so close to his face. He was lifted first, about a foot, and the cloth gathered up his body neatly. Then he was lowered into the pit.

As he was lowered in little jerks that made his body shift in every possible painful way around the wounds, he vaguely heard commands to believe in a Smiling God. The Smiling God will set you free. The Smiling God will stop your pain. The Smiling God, thought Kevin, sounded quite comparable to death.

A gentle bump told him he had reached the pit's floor. A tangle of ropes fell on top of him. One fell on his hand, and he clutched it reflexively, squeezing it as if it could lessen the pain.

Lessen the pain. Would he give himself to the Smiling God if it could stop this pain? No, Kevin resolved, resistant even as the agony threatened to black him out, he would take double this pain and still spit in the face of this abominable corporation's hellish god. Training hadn't broken him, and neither would this. He would die before betraying his town. Any hell was better than becoming one of Strex's grinning minions.

And yet, as the minutes stretched on, he began to get impatient for some god to come take his pain away already.

Time passed, and every twitch brought fresh bursts of agony to his wounds. It could not have been more than twenty minutes-- he would have bled out by then-- but bullet wounds had a way of making the moments crawl. The voices above had vanished; he'd been left alone. All he could hear was the sound of his own strained whimpers. All he could see-- well, his eyes were squeezed too tightly to test.

And then, a hand touched him. He jumped, or rather, twitched. His body was no longer capable of any larger motion. His already rapid and shallow breathing quickened.

“Oh, dear. I never told them to hurt you,” a gentle voice said.

The hand caressed his cheek, soothing, comforting. Kevin forced open an eye. Through his tears, vaguely, a human form.

“Shhh,” the person said. “You don't have to believe. Just let me fix this.”

The hands, warm, airy, more soothing than any balm, brushed his hair out of his face, then pressed tenderly over his shoulder. Warmth seeped in and melted the ice-spike stab of pain, and then, that gentle warmth was the only feeling there at all. He drank in the sensation with a tremulous moan. The person made more soothing sounds, then moved to Kevin's stomach. Again, utter relief and comfort as the wound was healed. Vaguely, he was aware that he had been pulled up against the person's body, was leaning against a strong chest.

His shattered ankle was drawn up now. Feeling it touched and moved, Kevin hissed. He heard another “shhh,” a breeze right in his ear. He tensed as the hand closed around it, then relaxed with the dissipation of pain. He felt okay now. The agony was gone. Even the lingering complaints from earlier injuries were hushed. In fact, cradled in this savior's arms, he felt more comfortable than he ever had in his life.

The fingers now trailed over his face and lips. They felt so nice. He was not urged to open his eyes, or to relax, or to do anything at all. But he did. He moaned gratefully, and lifted his eyelids and head to see who had saved him.

A man. Okay. Face pleasant enough, right about in the center of average, proportions ideal but soft. He smiled at him. Kevin smiled back.

“Your name is Kevin,” the smiling man said. 

“Yes,” Kevin said.

The man did not introduce himself. Instead, he hummed and caressed Kevin's cheek and neck. Stroked his fingers through his hair. “How does that feel?” he asked.

“Wonderful,” Kevin sighed.

Lips pressed his, warm and moist and right. He did not tense or pull away. Just relaxed and accepted this gentle warmth.

A hand was on top of the place the wound in his stomach had been, the most comfortable thing that had ever touched his skin. It slid lower.

“Is this alright?” the breath whispered in his ear.

“Mmh,” Kevin agreed.

There was a scent, Kevin realized. It tangled up his senses even as the fingers tangled in the hair beneath his pants. Rich and fresh and sweet and dizzying and about the best thing he had smelled in his whole life. It was the smell of his lover.

His lover?

Of course. This gentle man, this savior, this taker of pain and bringer of ease, was stroking a warm palm down his male member. He stiffened a little, both down there and across his body, making a noise at the arousal.

“Shhh,” came again.

And his clothes were gone, and so were the man's.

They pressed against each other, kissing more deeply now. The man's hands traveled over Kevin's back, exploring his musculature like it was fresh terrain, gasping at the breathtaking landscape. He pressed, kneaded, and massaged, and Kevin's entire body undulated in response.

“You're beautiful,” the man whispered against his neck. “I want you. Please. Enter me.”

They pushed and pulsed against each other; soon Kevin was on top of him, kissing him, tasting his chest. A delicious, addictive taste, something he could not quite place, although instead of being distracted by it, he was absorbed.

The smiling man whispered sweet things, like melodies, to him, and he whispered back, not sure what his words were but knowing they were more perfect than anything he had ever said. He slipped his hand between the man's silky cheeks and pressed a finger inside him.

The man arched and let out a moan and Kevin groaned and could not get inside him quickly enough.

“Be mine,” the man whispered.

Kevin groaned. On hands and knees over him, he pumped, feeling the body push away and rebound like waves, gasps refracting in little fragmented rays, smile beatific beneath half-lidded eyes.

“You,” he moaned gently, lovingly. He ducked his head for another perfect kiss, while that perfect rhythm around him kept pulsing, and drew his head back again. Ahh, that warmth around him. The waves of motion coherent, bright. “You... you're...”

It hit him with more force than a bullet to the stomach and he jerked back. “You're the Smiling God!”

His hands hit the god's chest, shoving him away. He scrambled back, pulling out, all ties to the scent and the feeling and the flesh snapping. His shoulders hit the gritty wall of the pit and he panted sharply, eyes wide, smile gone.

“Look at you,” the Smiling God said, his smile conveying both surprise and utter pride in Kevin for causing that surprise. “A will so strong. Such loyalty for your town.”

His voice held only approval, no anger or threat. It started to soften Kevin. But he growled and tensed and held firm against the diabolical god.

“You,” Kevin hissed. “Let my town go! Take your corporation and leave us alone!”

Naked and huddled against the dirt wall of the pit, Kevin felt himself shrink as the god stood. Icy fear weighed down his stomach, but still he bared his teeth.

“Kevin. You had almost known me,” the god said. Voice still gentle, unintimidating even though now his powerful divine form stood in stark contrast to Kevin's vulnerable mortal body. “Please, little radio host,” the god... begged? “Allow me to show you what we do.”

If permission were a twinge of curiosity, the god accepted it; the next moment, Kevin was standing, clothed, beside the god on a great cliff. The night sky was above them, clear black void behind pure white stars. Even the milk of the milky way was composed of perfect bright points. Nebulae were huge and bright across the sky.

Beneath them, haze or clouds, Kevin was not sure which, shrouded everything beneath their cliff save the occasional sharp peak. The mist churned like the sea in slow motion, infinitely fluid, bumpy with turbulence and yet, on the large scale, flat as far as the eye could see, an ocean stretching past the horizon. The entirety of the liquid clouds were lit orange and gold from beneath, by the rising sun.

The sky above him was frozen, but heat rising from the sun-lit clouds kept him warm.

It enchanted him. His Desert Bluffs mind recognized this, recognized the way his shoulders slacked in relaxation and his heart hurt from the beauty and awe. He jerked slightly and said, “You're taking me on a date? Is that what this... is?” He tried to insert a swear word, but in the face of such beauty, could not bring himself to form it. His anger was soft, hard to maintain.

“Look at you,” the Smiling God said, and he looked at Kevin with more wonder than Kevin looked at the sky and clouds with. “You have an incredible presence. Greater than any mortal I have known. To resist me like this... Kevin... what makes you so special...” The god put his finger beneath Kevin's chin, lifting it slightly to gaze into his eyes, wonder clear on his face.

It certainly caught Kevin off-guard. To be admired by a god, to be approved of so fully by... anyone, really. He had been himself, casually, almost vulgarly, and this had triggered a response of love and awe. All the darkness and dirt and combat of his old life fell away. He was here, now, beneath this motionlessly chilled sky and above the languidly churning waves of glowing mist and before this god who gazed at him in worship.

A hand warm atop his stomach.

“Make love to me,” the god said.

“No,” Kevin said, fear and ferality gone but some part of him still there, speaking from beneath these layers of haze. “No,” he said softly, “You are the enemy.”

“My enchanting, amazing Kevin,” the Smiling God said. “I am taken by you. What shall I do to win your love?”

“Leave my town,” Kevin said. “Leave it, and...” Kevin looked into those eyes, and the sacrifice was easy to make-- “... I'll be yours. If you want me, take me, have me however you want, just leave my town. Take StrexCorp out of Desert Bluffs.”

“Oh, but Kevin, I love you now,” the god sighed. The hand on his stomach pressed. The other hand entwined his hair. “Your town, without me, is doomed. I want to save all that you care for. Please, trust me. If you could comprehend the way in which I am changing your town, your heart would soar in joy. You would want it. You would thank me for the things you now so violently resist.”

“I do not love you,” Kevin said. Everything felt distant, like a dream. The stars were the brightest things he had ever seen, the glowing ocean of clouds the most breathtaking, the hand on his stomach... ahh... he put his hands over it, pressing it closer. “I do not trust you. You take me out here, you tell me you love me, but it is all... just a...” Kevin's will faltered, unable in this moment to utter so crude of an accusation as “trick.”

Whispered, in his ear: “Let me show you something else.”

Now, a real ocean, a literal ocean of black salted waves and charcoal sand. It too stretched to the horizon, endlessly wide, endlessly deep, moaning like a whale in its enormity, great powerful waves crashing on the dark shore, a dead pattern enduring for billions of years.

The sky above was empty, perfect black.

“Can you smell it?” the god whispered. He stood behind Kevin, his arms wrapped around him, hands warm over his stomach.

Pine trees above the clean salt scent of the waves. He could hear without turning the vastness of the black forest behind him, the shush of a million rustling needles, the echo of this sound off great walls of ragged cliffs. The air was cold like ice, but he felt no discomfort. The planet beneath his feet turned slowly, gigantic, groaning, lit by no sun.

“This,” the Smiling God said simply. And the sand began to glow.

Something divine must have protected his eyes, for the sand brightened like each grain was a star. Billions of diamonds, perfect shining jewels, their crystal light radiated beneath their feet like they were standing on condensed galaxies, and it continued beneath the waves. The whole ocean glowed from the light bursting from its floor, greenish aqua, flickering and shifting from the distortion of the starlight beneath its heaving waves and continuing into the air in wave-patterned beams to create a green aurora against the black sky.

“Do you know what we look like in the sky right now?” the Smiling God asked, his breath rushing past Kevin's ear like the wind past someone falling. “Like a bright star, like a cold sun more brilliant than any mortal could imagine. We fill the sky, we overcome the horizon and stretch beyond the ceiling of sanity.”

His hands stroked downwards and his kissed Kevin's neck. “And we sing.”

“Here?” Kevin asked, dazed, wondering, almost incredulous as the god lowered him onto his back on the sand. Their clothes were again gone.

“There is beauty,” the god groaned against Kevin's skin. His lips were warm and soft. He licked him like Kevin's mortal sweat and salt were the finest offering. “I create beauty, and yet, here you are, outshining everything I have done.”

Billions of cold bright crystals cradled Kevin's back, shoulders, and thighs; above him, the silky god rubbed against his erection, and across the skin of his chest and neck, warm and solid.

“I... ahh.” Even with his eyes closed, Kevin was dazzled. The light was everywhere. A feeling of intense arousal bloomed along every part of him involved in orgasm. “Don't,” he whispered in a rush. “Don't do this to me, I can't think.”

“Just feel.”

“Ahh! You're the... the enemy...”

“I am not, I told you this,” the god sighed. His erection pressed at Kevin's entrance, and he barely had time to gasp before the whole length pushed effortlessly in. He was painlessly stretched, but the sensation accompanying it, like a stomach bursting with butterflies, was harder to bear than any pain. Kevin arched his back and cried out.

“Shh,” the god breathed, stroking his hair. He began to move back and forth, pushing his prostate, making the supernatural arousal in his guts and groin grow. Kevin's voice dissolved into whimpers and he turned his face to the side. The light from the sand filled his vision. Billions and billions, tiny perfect stars, insanely bright diamonds, perfect units of infinite brilliance, reflecting pure white bursts on the edges of his tears. Dazzling.

“I love you,” the Smiling God said. “I want to join you. Kevin. Look at me.” Kevin choked on sobs and did as he was told.

Some filter had been removed from in front of the god's face and looking into his eyes felt like falling. His smile stretched wider than the limits of his mind, and consumed him. The thrill of it added to the intensity of what was going on in the place the god was still thrusting into. Kevin took in a great gasp of air to scream, but, like he was in a dream, could not find the ability to vocalize. His vocal cords froze and his back and hips stiffened against the god's thrusts. He clenched the bright sand, fistfuls of galaxies between his fingers. Light from the god's face washed out his vision, washed out the sensations, turned everything into the spark and burst of a pure orgasm, and then his scream did release but it was without body or sound. Their bodies were gone, the planet was gone, they were just light, and light, and light, and light, and light, and light, and light, pure, ecstatic, orgasming, touching each other and warming each other and brightening each other and entering each other and being each other in ways too intimate for flesh.

Kevin's mind broke at that point, losing all ability to process what was going on, taken apart by a greater climax than any mortal could conceive. Unconsciousness crashed over him, but instead of blackness it was filled with white light.

**

Kevin woke in his bed. He felt infinitely relaxed and refreshed, blankets yielding like warm fluff around him. A warm tingle made his body feel like it was glowing. A glance around, however, revealed his skin was its normal luminosity, and the covers that felt so luxurious were his normal blankets.

It might have been a dream. Dreams had a way of leaving their unearthly feelings with a person upon waking sometimes, did they not? He could still feel the god's touch on his stomach. Inside his stomach. Warm and solid and reassuring and churning with slow light. He put his hand over it with a cherishing smile.

Oh.

Beneath his hand, his stomach was firm and round. Something ancient and new and transient and enduring slowly turned. Life, deep inside.

He was pregnant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's Chapter 1! I have large chunks of many other chapters written, plus a Valentine's Day special. I am deeply in love with this story. This thing is going to go a lot of places and I promise at least one of them will blow your minds. Thanks for reading! Comment if you want me to tell you where in your house I hid the sack of spider eggs!
> 
>  
> 
> *****BONUS: PREVIEW FROM A FUTURE CHAPTER*****
> 
> “I am giving you one rule, Kevin, that you must follow absolutely. Do NOT drink this.”
> 
> “Why not?” Kevin said, immediately tipping it into his mouth.


	2. Heaven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I almost apologized for using a pop song, but you know what? I'm not going to apologize for who I am. This song spoke to me and I thought it was uncannily appropriate for this fic, more and more so as I read the lyrics, and I do not care that it's currently on the Top Ten charts. YOU'RE lame! *crawls under a pile of xkcd shirts for a while to hide from the hipsters and talented authors.*

He could not stop smiling. Even though the parts of his mind that still kept stalwart watch behind the warmth and manipulation of the Smiling God said terrible, sensible things, with the feeling of this life growing inside him, he could not stop smiling.

The Smiling God was like a teenager, his inner voice said, filtered and stripped of resentment by the layers of warm mist that shrouded him. Calmly, but unwaveringly, it said, the Smiling God tried to win you first with sex. Then, he took you on a date. He tried to seduce you with praise and false adoration. And now, to keep you, he has gotten you pregnant. Is this a god or a high schooler?

“Shh,” Kevin said, and around his smile, his utterance sounded like the soothing hush of his god.

He got out of bed and removed his shirt. Rubbing the baby bump gently, gazing at it, he found himself craving a mirror.

And then hands were on top of his, on top of his stomach, on top of his baby.

“You want to see what you look like?” the Smiling God said.

“Mm-hmm,” Kevin nodded.

And he saw himself, the way his god saw him. Glowing, heavenly, a soul shining so strongly that the visceral little details of his hard bones and flesh were washed out. His mortal body standing naked, perfect, utterly divine around the curve of his stomach. He was totally taken by it, in no small part because he was simultaneously feeling everything the Smiling God felt to look at him.

“Kiss me,” he said, or thought, or simply desired, and the Smiling God did. The vision faded out and they held each other in Kevin's apartment.

“I have a place I'd like to take you,” the Smiling God said. Kevin nodded against his neck.

A breeze and the scent of fresh leaves wrapped him; he looked up to find they were in a forest, moist and green and hung with long, thick tangles of peat. Birds echoed near and far, calm beneath the warm sun.

“It's humid,” Kevin remarked.

“It's perfect,” the Smiling God said. “You should appreciate this. Have you ever been out of the desert?”

“No,” Kevin said. He took a deep breath; the air itself was rich with life. “This is nice.”

The god sat against a tree and opened his arm for Kevin to cuddle in to his side. He did so, rubbing his tummy. The god hugged him close and gave him an affectionate squeeze.

“Do you want to eat something that is good for the baby?”

“Of course.”

The Smiling God presented a round, plump fruit, about the size of a large pomelo and soft and fleshy like a peach. Kevin bit into it and felt instantly nourished. It was beyond delicious, juicy and sweet and so fresh it seemed like it was pumping life into him through an invisible vine connected directly to the cosmos. A peach might be its closest analogy, if a peach weren't a gray flat thing cut from newsprint in comparison. He ate it all, finding no seeds or pit, and then licked the running juice off his hands and wrists. The god hugged his arm around him and petted his hair affectionately while he ate.

“And this,” the god said, giving him a stone vase as he sucked on his skin and looked about for more.

He tilted the vase and sipped at it; it was milk, but again, any human experience with even the finest cream would fail to approximate it. It was thick, rich, filling, and, like the fruit, nourished him with a vitality he had not previously known. The vase's size suggested it contained about a quart, but Kevin drank far more of that without the level ever going down. The baby inside him warmed.

All the while, the god continued to watch him and stroke his hair.

The fruit and milk tasted so delicious, so fulfilling, so addictive, that Kevin might have fallen unable to do anything other than eat them for the rest of eternity if the milk hadn't done such a good job at sating him. He felt the moment that it had filled him just right, and was content to stop and just revel in the feeling of being healthy and whole.

“Good?” the Smiling God asked, rhetorically.

“That would be an understatement,” Kevin said, placing his hand on his belly and resting his head against his god with eyes closed. The baby stretched and sighed.

The god made love to him, without the frantic intensity, just filling him and rocking him against the peat ground in a way that was almost meditative. It was like lying under heavy waves, feeling the pull and push of the tide, great and deep above him. A secure blanket miles thick. Kevin just relaxed and enjoyed the sensation, and when he came, it was like heaving a long sigh that carried away all remaining tension.

As he came around in his god's arms, he asked for more milk, and also a saucer to lap it from, as was Desert Bluffs custom. Glasses and cups were unheard of, except in hospitals: liquids were lapped from bowls, freeing both hands to grip knives. He did not take out his knives here, however, and in fact had not even checked to see if they had accompanied him on the trip.

The Smiling God obliged him with a saucer made from stone.

Kevin lay on his front, belly twisted to the side, and lapped while his god's arm draped over him. Without weapons to hold, his hands instead kneaded the soft, earthy peat.

“Let's stay here forever,” he murmured after he had drunk his fill, settling his head into crossed arms on the moss.

“The feeling will remain with you when we return to Desert Bluffs. It will always be with you, as long as I am with you.”

“Will you be with me always?”

“I love you. Of course.”

**

When the god returned him to his home, no time had passed. It was still morning, and he still had two hours to get ready for work. He did not have to shower; the god would prove to have a habit of returning him to the mortal realm clean. He could smell the god on himself, faintly, and loved pressing his arm against his nose and sniffing deep.

The Smiling God had a surprisingly good sense of boundaries, and left Kevin alone to finish his morning routine and go to work. Alone, at least, in the sense that he was not physically there; the god's presence permeated Kevin constantly, filling him with comfort and joy. He hummed to the baby as he picked out an outfit, feeling the very air smile in response.

He went to pack a lunch. Nothing in the refrigerator appealed to him, though he noticed a strange brown paper bag on the top shelf. He examined it to find one of the god's plump fruits and his DBCR thermos, which turned out to contain that otherworldly milk.

He hummed on the way to work. Strexcorp's public transportation, available exclusively to believers, was an utter delight. He reveled in being surrounded by smiling faces that shared his love for the Smiling God. Well, to an extent. None of these people loved the Smiling God in QUITE the same way Kevin did. But at least they loved enough to not become homicidally violent at being in such close quarters with other people.

He drifted through his broadcast, describing his encounter with the smiling god in great detail, though it all just sounded like a flowery analogy for regular worship: phrases like “filled with his holy light” and “thrusted into his warmth” and “screamed as I climaxed with the light of my god around me” were pretty ambiguous when you were used to the way people typically talked about their prayers.

“And his life is in me, Desert Bluffs,” Kevin said, closing his eyes as he talked about the little miracle. “Through me, the smiling god's presence will continue in this world.”

The morning chant was very pleasurable. Everyone greeted him warmly, and complimented him afterwards on not sounding as sarcastic as he usually did.

He skipped his typical mid-morning snack and had a late lunch; when his stomach started to rumble for sweet fruit and thick milk, he switched to [the weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0imaSCnSuA) and got his lunch out of the station fridge. Even though it had been there all day, the milk was still body-temperature warm, and the fruit had its own refreshing coolness that did not match the setting on the refrigerator.

He took them back to his desk and hummed along to [the weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0imaSCnSuA) as he ate:

_…My Church offers no absolution_   
_She tells me, 'Worship in the bedroom.'_   
_The only heaven I'll be sent to_   
_Is when I'm alone with you—_

_I was born sick,_   
_But I love it_   
_Command me to be well_   
_Amen. Amen. Amen._

_Take me to church_   
_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_   
_I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife_   
_Offer me that deathless death_   
_Good God, let me give you my life_

_Take me to church_   
_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_   
_I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife_   
_Offer me that deathless death_   
_Good God, let me give you my life_

_If I'm a pagan of the good times_   
_My lover's the sunlight_   
_To keep the Goddess on my side_   
_She demands a sacrifice_

_Drain the whole sea_   
_Get something shiny_   
_Something meaty for the main course_   
_That's a fine looking high horse_   
_What you got in the stable?_   
_We've a lot of starving faithful_

_That looks tasty_   
_That looks plenty_   
_This is hungry work_

_Take me to church_   
_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_   
_I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife_   
_Offer me that deathless death_   
_Good God, let me give you my life_

_Take me to church_   
_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_   
_I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife_   
_Offer me my deathless death_   
_Good God, let me give you my life_

_No Masters or Kings_   
_When the Ritual begins_   
_There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin_

_In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene_   
_Only then I am Human_   
_Only then I am..._

Something deep in Kevin shouted, startling him. He threw off the headphones. But whatever that pesky little thing called his “rational mind” was trying to say was drowned out when he returned to his milk, eagerly lapping it from a paper bowl until his body stopped begging for it.

_Let me give you my life_

“Welcome back, Desert Bluffs, and I hope in the break you, too have found ways to fill yourselves with the blessings of our Smiling God. Of course, none of you have it as good as I do, and surely none of you is smiling as hard. It's all right, though. Nobody's perfect, and you will not receive strikes from Strexcorp. No ADDITIONAL strikes, anyway. No additional shocks either. All of you have a blessed day, Desert Bluffs. Have a blessed day.”

He flicked off the ON AIR sign and leaned back with a sigh, rubbing his tummy. “Are you going to be a radio broadcaster when you grow up?” he asked.

Vanessa entered, and he reflexively sat up and concealed his baby bump. Blissed out as he was, Desert Bluffers always hid pregnancy, to avoid being marked by their fellow citizens as easy prey. He did not consider the reason behind it, however, and simply followed custom without thinking. He certainly had no fear of his fellow citizens now that they were filled with the light of the Smiling God!

“That was a beautiful broadcast today, Kevin,” Vanessa said.

“Thank you, Vanessa,” Kevin replied. “What can I say? I've come around to the Smiling God.” Deep down, something twisted and cringed. He shook his head.

“Are you okay, Kevin?”

“Huh? Of course I am! I've never been more okay in my life.” His stomach ditched, and for a second he thought he was going to have morning sickness, but it passed. He repeated a few quick Strexcorp mantras in his head to calm himself down, and returned to smiling and sharing Vanessa's warm company.

“Want a cupcake?” Vanessa was offering. “I made them myself. Well, I custom ordered them at that new pastry shop down the street, but look, I picked out the positioning of the Strexcorp logo and a verse from the Strexcorp Official List of Approved Praises myself!”

“I'm full.”

“Well, we're all having snacks in the break room after our afternoon chant. You're welcome to join us.”

Kevin chanted with his coworkers, but then gathered up his bag lunch went straight home. As he had dearly hoped, his god was there.

The Smiling God smiled widely and spread his arms when he saw him. “Kevin,” he greeted. “I'm happy to see you.”

Kevin bounded into his embrace. “I've been thinking about you all day.”

“I know you have. I can't get you out of my mind, either, my love.”

They nuzzled and kissed. Kevin let his head drop back to gaze into his god's face. Trying to pin down and adore his features, he found that the face his mind automatically labeled as “ordinary” was actually a number of faces, millions, possibly billions, of male and female faces superimposed on each other, like one of those famous photographs of averaged faces, different ones floating to the surface and then sinking back each moment, all grinning widely.

Kevin tilted his head in awe and stroked his thumb over his god's morphing cheek. Everything resolved into the cherishing look the Smiling God returned to him, and then his face was simple and unremarkable in his brain again.

“Are we going someplace special?” Kevin asked.

“Of course. Today is special. Every day will be special, from now on.”

“Take me.”

“You decide where we go today.”

Kevin's eyes widened and shone. He looked into the distance, thinking.

“Someplace warm... and sunny. Open and transparent where every beam that shines from you can stretch for miles. Like... like the desert. Someplace with lots of sand. More sand than I've ever seen!” He got excited and bit his wrist at the thought.

The Smiling God chuckled. Then they were standing on a great stretch of tawny black-streaked gold, sparkling beneath the clear white sky, while the Smiling God shook out a silk picnic blanket.

“It's so smooth,” Kevin remarked, crouching to pick up the fine silt.

“It's a sea bed. I flattened out the rims for you. Makes the horizon look bigger.”

“Hey! Fish bones!”

The Smiling God chuckled. “I knew you'd be pleased to see that.”

Kevin dug a bit, finding the remains of a few sea creatures, until the Smiling God sat down on the blanket and announced the existence of lunch. Kevin scrambled to kneel with him next to a container that resembled a cross between a picnic basket and a golden ark.

“You like meat, do you not?

Kevin nodded enthusiastically.

"Try this.”

He gave Kevin a beautiful slab of raw meat, cut straight from a fatted calf.

Kevin snapped it up. It was far better than any mortal food, but fell short of the divine fruit and milk. It was nonetheless satisfying and nourishing, and he gulped it all down.

“And blood?” the god asked.

“Of course!” Kevin said, eagerly accepting a golden grail. The blood, like the meat, lay far above the blood he had drunk in Desert Bluffs, but paled in comparison to the milk. It still felt more alive than any living thing he had held in his mouth. Like entire lifetimes had been condensed into a single mouthful.

Kevin made a noise between a purr and a moan and ate more than his usual fill. When he finally lifted his head, the Smiling God asked, “How was that?” He sounded genuinely curious.

“Good,” Kevin said, licking his bloody chops. “But not as good as the fruit and milk.”

“That's not milk. Ahh, my dear Kevin, you will never fail to surprise me. I was wondering if you could distinguish between this and the other food I've given you. That was a sacrifice. A properly done one, which is sadly becoming quite rare.”

The god lay on his back and patted his abdomen; Kevin laid his head on it, and then the Smiling God rested his hand on his belly. They gazed up at the white sky for a while, enjoying each others' company. After a time, Kevin asked, “How does it work?”

“You really need to be more specific than that.”

“Sacrifices. And how can you get it wrong.”

“Well, obviously you need to use precise prayers and rituals for it to reach me, otherwise you just have a dead animal rotting on the ground. And while it kind of works if a virgin isn't used, the true power just won't come through.”

“I keep hearing that about virgins. Our old god... I'm sorry... but our old god demanded virgin sacrifices, too. Bad things happened if we tried to fudge it.”

“It's more valuable if they have never reproduced. When you eat a sacrifice, you are eating not only the animal, but any offspring it may have had as well. Its entire lease on the world has been given to you. If it has already reproduced, any survivors are a leak in that sacrifice.”

“So wait. They don't have to be a virgin. They just have to have no offspring. So someone who has done the dirty ten times a day, all holes filled, is up for grabs as long as nobody's gotten pregnant. Even I could be a sacrifice.”

“There is a purity factor, too. It's like eating an apple that's been licked but not bitten.”

Kevin sucked on the rim of the goblet. “I can taste that life. All the lives.”

“You're a perceptive one,” the god muttered, furrowing his brow. He scratched Kevin's hair affectionately. “But of course you had to be unique to win the affection of a god.”

“Mmh. This baby...”

“She is ours, and she is going to be beautiful. I can't wait to raise her with you.”

The Smiling God pulled Kevin into a kiss, and then they were naked.

“You really have to let me take your clothes off sometime,” Kevin chided between kisses. “There IS erotic value in that.”

“Shall I put them back on?” the Smiling God asked as his flushed erection pressed Kevin's.

“Ahh, no.” He panted rapidly as the supernatural feeling of arousal warmed his insides. “Mmmm... That feels so good...”

"Come inside me."

He hooked one of the Smiling God's legs over his shoulder and entered him. Ahh, perfect, just the right tightness, smoothness, and warmth. His vision greyed as the sensations began to overwhelm him, but he lifted his head just enough to notice particles of sand rising all around them, glittering.

“Beautiful,” he gasped. The fire in his groin blazed and he arched his back. All around him, glitter suspended in the air, languidly circling them and then beginning to rush faster with his approaching climax.

“Everything for you.”

Kevin's head fell back and he watched the dizzying little lights torrent as he thrust harder, pulsing in a single coherent wave of passion, his god moaning and crying in a voice that made his ears themselves orgasm, the storm growing brighter and louder and thicker and faster until his release again escaped the abilities of his awareness. He lost all sense of self and became the orgasm.

He came back to himself swiftly afterwards, finding himself flopped in his god's arms like he had been caught while collapsing. He looked over his shoulder and found the sand was gone; they knelt on a horizon-wide plane of white and stone bones.

“Where did the sand go?”

“Look up.”

Kevin had once flipped through a pagan book carried by a traveler he'd eaten, and it had compared the number of grains of sand on the beach to the number of stars in the sky. From the context, the book seemed to imply that the stars outnumbered the sand.

The book was wrong.

Hanging in a great blanket above them, entirely covering the sky, the sand was so dense and thick that it would have entirely blacked everything out if it were not glowing with its own light. Rather than the hard brilliant light of the sand on the planet lit by no sun, the Smiling God had endowed this sand with a warm, reddish glow. It felt like being in a womb, infinitely thick and rich with life.

“How many are there,” he asked breathlessly.

“What, grains of sand?”

“Yes.”

“On Earth?”

“Yes. Yes!! I've always wondered that.”

“Thirty-one octillion, four hundred ninety-two septillion, eleven hexillion, six hundred eighteen quintillion, eight hundred ninety-seven quadrillion, one hundred seventeen trillion, three hundred ninety-five billion, three hundred thirty-three million, nine hundred six thousand, five hundred and sixty-two.”

Kevin dropped his gaze to stare at his god. “You are amazing,” he said.

“I'm a god,” the Smiling God replied. “What's your excuse?”

Kevin laughed. They kissed and closed their eyes, and when Kevin opened them again, they were back in his apartment. The Smiling God walked backwards, pulling Kevin with him, until they were making out on his couch.

The Smiling God moaned into his mouth, pressed him into the rusty brown fabric, and somehow, the idea that, after taking Kevin to such divine places, and doing such divine things, while being such a divine creature as a god, the Smiling God would deem the couch in Kevin's mortal home a sacred enough space to hold him... well, it was downright good etiquette.

Fingers stroked his hair, and as Kevin gazed at the somewhat stained and threadbare couch, it was sanctified. It was Kevin's couch. This was Kevin's somewhat messy, rather low-rent little home, and because it was his, it was holy, and every water stain was exalted and made the embodiment of the divine.

Everything that was his, was as perfect as the fingers stroking his hair. As glorious as the life within his body.

“All this for a radio host,” Kevin's rational voice made it through. Incredulity tinged its tone.

“I could have replaced the Voice of Desert Bluffs long ago,” the Smiling God replied. “All this is for you.”

“You do not truly love me,” his reason said.

“I do,” the Smiling God assured. “I love you fully, the way only a god can, for all the things about you that only a god can see. I love you, Kevin. I love you.”

“THEN GIVE ME MY MIND!”

Kevin did not know if he thought it or yelled it, but certainly his body pushed the god away. He must have yelled it, his throat still felt rough. He shook his head and stumbled back.

“Then don't manipulate my feelings! Don't put this, this pleasant haze over me. You're putting these feelings inside me, you're doing something to me to make me docile. Stop it! You wouldn't need to do this if you loved me! You wouldn't need to do this if I loved you!” He clutched his belly, feeling suddenly about to vomit. “Get this thing OUT of me!”

“Shh,” the god said, putting a hand on his shoulder. Warmth and calm seeped through his body. “I'm not changing you. This is just how it naturally feels to be in my presence.”

“STOP IT!” Kevin shouted, smacking his hand away. The feeling of reassurance vanished.

The god looked genuinely surprised.

“I don't love you! I don't want you! I don't want your baby inside me! I don't want you in this town! Take everything you've given me, take every one of your abominable 'blessings' and exit my life!”

“Your will has always been for me to leave Desert Bluffs. To free it from StrexCorp.”

“Yes! And to stop manipulating me! And get-- get this damn thing out of me!” Kevin doubled over the thing that now scraped and rumbled within him like an ancient scaled beast beneath the sand.

“Kevin, I do love you. I will do as you wish. But I cannot revoke the life.”

Suddenly, everything was empty and dull.

A distant voice said: “Returned to your ordinary life, you will feel like you are being punished. You are not. You do not need to be forgiven. I love you, and you have done no wrong. Call for me, and you will have me back.”

And all was silent.

Kevin slumped to his knees. He shook and sobbed. The Smiling God was gone, he could feel it, and he knew that when he stepped out the door, his town would be normal. The baby was still inside him. It was a piece of the god that, despite all concessions, would not go away.

After some time, he staggered to the window, and looked out at his feral town. Dirty and dingy and violent. The mortals snapped and screamed at each other, tumbling in the dirt. He would bring the baby into this, raise it in profanity. He narrowed his eyes in disgust, but it was nothing compared to the disgust he felt as his totally free mind contemplated the manipulation the Smiling God had subjected him to.

Ah. And the smile was gone from his face.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I was going to use normal conventions and express the figure the smiling god gives for the number of grains of sand in the world as “31,492,011,678,897,117,395,333,906,562,” but I like to do things you don't usually see done when given the opportunity, so I went ahead and wrote it out so you know how to pronounce it. You know, in case you're reading this story to your kid at bedtime or something. 
> 
> I've never written leg-over-the-shoulder sex before and found the position surprisingly hard to keep track of as I tried to write who was touching, kissing, and leaning on what. I had to keep stopping and being like, “Okay, the Smiling God is on his back, Kevin is kneeling. Wait, what position is the Smiling God in? That's right, his back is on the ground. Now HOW far can their lips reach?”
> 
> Offer to reveal where I've hidden spiders in your home in exchange for comments is still open.


End file.
